Launcher’s Lurgy causes space launch vehicles to be delayed relative to their planned launch date. The disorder is similar in nature to Loser’s Lurgy, a condition causing Quidditch players to perform poorly, first described by Luna Lovegood in J.K. Rowling’s enormously successful Harry Potter series. Pretty much all rockets have Launcher’s Lurgy with launch delays being all too annoyingly common. For example, a quick search on the word “delayed” on Spaceflight Now’s launch history log web page[1] results in more than 100 matches (the search engine’s limit). There is no known cure for Launcher’s Lurgy but simulation modeling can be used to develop predictions for how many launches can be achieved over a particular time period and when any particular launch of interest is likely to launch by.
